guide to figure sculpting

7/31/2019 Guide to Figure Sculpting

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www.aidan-campbell.co.uk Miniature artist, sculptor and small scale model maker

Miniature Figure Sculpting Guide Page 1

Sculpting miniature fgures is not something that canbe taught, it has to be learnt through practice.

Sculpting isnt easy in any size, and particularly not miniaturesthat may be no more than a few cm tall. Whats more a set ofinstructions cant teach you how to sculpt, theres only ever beenone way of learning how to sculpt that actually works and thats

sculpting. You just have to make a start, make mistakes, producelots of rubbish and keep practising. You cant allow yourself tobecome disheartened. Just keep asking yourself why doesnt mywork look right? When youve identifed a serious problem orerror you try and correct it. The more time you spend correct-ing problems the more intuitive your sculpting becomes, and themore you understand your subject the less likely you are to makethese major mistakes again. Its only then you start noticing more

subtle problems and mistakes which need correcting. Take heartfrom the fact there isnt a good sculptor alive today thats evertotally happy with any of their work. The truly great sculptors

are the ones who can always fnd more problems and mistakes tocorrect and so they are the ones that keep improving. In truth thatis the art to being a good sculptor. For although manual dexterityand the precise manipulation of tiny quantities of material can bea challenge when frst sculpting miniature fgures, its really allabout observation and understanding of the human form.

Though I have acquired a fairly extensive selection of sculptingtools, I still use only two dental picks for almost all my sculpt-ing. (both good quality examples with a long straight shaft witha small hook at the end) In addition I also use cocktail sticks, a

pot of water and what used to be a good quality size O sablebrush. A scalpel and a needle le or two are also useful for ti-dying things up or carving details. So this is not an expensivetool kit. Of course most miniaturists will have tool boxes full of

bits and pieces that occasionally prove useful on odd occasions.Perhaps most useful of these would be some form of wire cut-ters and pliers for making armatures, but you dont need a lot ofexpensive tools to get started.

Of course the term miniature gure covers a wide range of sub-jects. Perhaps the most common being the small gures used by

table top war games enthusiasts, whether they be historical g-ures or fantasy creations. However there is a much wider interestin miniature gure sculpting. Many military modellers like to

produce larger more detailed character sculpts as historic recordsof famous ofcers or merely records of period uniforms. Manyarchitectural modellers have a need for civilian gures to add lifeto dioramas, whilst many more aviation, maritime and railwaymodellers need a few gures to populate their models. In largersizes dolls house enthusiasts sculpt miniature gures and dolls,and there has long been an interest in sculpting portraits of allmanner of people, from famous individuals of past and present,to pieces representing friends or relatives. Though whatever the

chosen scales and subject, the basics of sculpting remain thesame.

All my sculpting is done with two part epoxy putty over a softcopper wire armature. This wire initially being salvaged froma skip, though its still dirt cheap if you have to buy a coil of it.

The putty is used in such small quantities, that there cant bemore than a few pence worth used in a typical miniature g-ure. There are many different brands of epoxy putty suitable forsculpting, and many more people use oven cured polymer clay,each marketed by different companies. It is worth trying as manytypes as you can nd, as they each have slightly different work-ing properties making them ideal for sculpting different parts orsizes of gure. As you play with each type youll get a feel forthose that suit you and the way you want to work. Materials Iveseen used successfully by others for sculpting are Magic sculpt,A & B putty, Super Sculpy and Fimo. It is also occasionally use-ful to have scraps of plastic, wood, bits of waste brass and wire(in other words left-overs from the model makers bits box) for

making details like weapons, tools, luggage or other accessoriesyou may want your gure to be holding.

My personal preference for sculpting is an American blue/yel-low epoxy putty called Kneadatite, but its sold here in Englandunder several other names, and is generally just known as thegreen stuff. This two part material mixes to become a hardgreen rubbery putty, akin to sculpting with thick toffee. Which,unlike most epoxy putty, does not cure to become a rigid solid,

but retains a degree of exibility when fully cured. The othertwo part epoxy putty I use is a British product called Milliput(the superne white variety). This is a very soft and similar in

consistency to a cream cheese. If kept reasonably dry it can besculpted into the larger more bulky parts of a gure and used to


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build up the basic shape over the armature. When wet it spreadsvery thinly and blends well onto existing work to give a smoothowing surfaces soft enough to shape with a wet paintbrush. This

putty sets rock hard in a few hours and can then be carved or fur-ther shaped with needle les but it is somewhat brittle when usedfor small or thin parts. When working epoxy putty it is necessaryto keep your tools wet to prevent the putty sticking to them ratherthan the partly nished gure.

I once had an art tutor who said Any fool can use a brush to putpaint onto paper. An artist is someone who has learnt how to lookat a subject and can see where on the paper they need to put it.Much the same is true of sculpting. Pushing little bits of puttyinto round blobs or squashing them into at bits isnt difcult.Knowing how big a bit of putty to use in relation to the last bit,and where it ought to be put is more difcult than most peopleimagine.

I dabbled in most areas of model making as a child, and if truthbe told, I still do as a professional. Though Id been paintingwhite metal military and war-gaming miniatures since the age ofeleven, I only started to try sculpting my own gures when I wasin my mid twenties, taking about four or ve years to get to gripswith the basics. However, a background in drawing and sketch-ing gures and portraits did also prove really useful as with a fairunderstanding of facial proportions and anatomy it was primarilyonly the easy bit of learning to manipulate new materials that Ihad to learn. Like many things to do with art and model making,I would suggest it does not require a great deal of free time tolearn the basics, although like all things worth doing, it may take

a lifetime to master.

Most peoples problems with sculpting stem from the fact weall think we know what a human-being looks like. After all,we see them on a daily basis, many of us even claim to be one(?@*#!*~#*?!). Consequently when we come to sculpt gureswe do far too much from memory and rarely look at the realthing. Learning to draw, paint, sculpt or make models is muchless about learning how to manipulate materials and far moreabout learning how to observe. Looking at the spatial relation-ships between objects and the gaps between them, constantlycomparing shapes, distances or lengths, looking at colour and

texture. In short, training your conscious mind to acknowledgeall those mundane, ordinary and often seemingly irrelevantthings that would normally only register in the sub-conscious.Having acknowledged all this you must then make a decision onhow you are to interpret this, as a good sculpt is not necessar-ily a wholly accurate one. Caricatures and comic subjects oftenrely on deliberately manipulating or deforming proportions andfeatures. You must however form a clear idea in your mind ofexactly what it is you want your hands to do. It is for this reasonthat although the manipulation of putty and wire can be taught,the creative part of sculpting, namely observation and artistic

judgement, is not really a thing that can easily be put into words,it just comes through practice.

Everybody has seen model gures that somehow dont lookquite right, Ive produced a fair few myself. When sculptingthere is a tendency for the intricate parts to end up oversized asyou squeeze in the detail. Look at the size of a model gures

head or hands, many of them are too big. Legs are somethingfew people study, consequently in model form they just sort ofll the gap between the waist and the feet. The legs often endup too short and fat, rarely do they give an indication of howthe weight of a body is supported on one leg in preference toanother. Soldiers on a parade ground are about the only peoplewho regularly stand with both knees locked straight and theirfeet together. Arms frequently look too bendy as if they have nointernal skeleton. Also consider what your gure looks like fromthe sides and back as many miniatures seem to be almost at andtwo dimensional. The problem we all face is that its very rarefor us to be consciously aware of exactly what constitutes the

right posture or proportions, yet we are all subconsciously awarewhen a gure is wrong.


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Try pressing indentations into the fresh putty or clay with yourdental picks or wax carvers, try dragging, spreading or smoothingit with them. Most of all try to get used to working small amountsof material with your tools and not your ngers. You will rarelyneed to work a piece larger than a pea, and much of my detailingwork is now done by adding pieces of putty smaller than a grainof sand (At these extremes the granular nature or texture of somematerials can become a problem) Put simply your ngers are toolarge to achieve anything useful in the small scales we work inso you have to get used to working with precision tools. The twodental picks I use both have a tip bent at right angles to the main

body of the tool. One with a very small and sharp point, the otherthe same shape but larger, rounder and blunter. I almost alwaysuse the side of the point and not its tip for smoothing or shaping

putty. Furthermore these are constantly dipped into water to lu-bricate them and help achieve smoother surfaces, preventing theputty sticking to them.

rate stages you break the project into and the time you dedicate torening each step before progressing to the next. The following,however, is offered as a simple introduction based upon quickmethods of producing basic gures. Something which shouldhelp get you started and from which can develop more elaborate,complicated and rened systems of your own.

When sculpting a gure never try to sculpt it all in one go; Sculpta little bit and let the putty cure before starting the next bit, youllonly end up squashing supposedly nished parts of the gure ifyou keep handling it before its cured. I invariably spread thesculpting of my gures over ve or more days, spending prob-ably no more twenty minutes or half an hour at a time on any onegiven gure. Either working on large numbers of gures at onetime, or occasionally just odd projects to ll in time whilst wait-ing for the glue to set, or paint to dry on some other more majormodel making project.

For a basic gure I start with a simple twisted copper wire ar-mature which may or may not include arms depending uponthe desired pose. Onto this I add simple blobs of Milliput for a

body; The two legs are added on separate occasions, sculpting increases to represent trouser detail. The legs need to be blendedinto the body whilst trying to give a faint suggestion of a waista little above half way up. Dont be afraid to use a needle le orscalpel when the putty is cured to further shape this initial stageof the gure. Instinctively you feel this bit should be the easy bitand the ne detail on the face is what you should spend your timeon. However getting the legs the right shape with a comfortablestance is the most important part simply because this seems to be

the bit most people get wrong. Its worth re-doing or reshapingthis as many times as it takes before you progress further. Onceyouve got the legs and torso right you can then add the head.

This I do with Kneadatite. Sculpting a head and face can be verytime consuming if you let it become so, and may benet from

being done in several stages, adding tiny amounts of material ata time if aiming for the highest levels of detail or producing por-trait work. Ive found myself scraping the tiny bits of putty outof the grooves of my ngerprints to use for adding on eyebrowswhich really isnt necessary in anything other than the largestof scales. In the end they just dont show! If the ears are visibleunderneath the hair keep these small and place them below the

level of the eye brows. Ears are much further round the side ofthe head and lower down than seems right at rst, so check whereyou put them.

It might be that your rst attempt isjust a small modication to a com-mercially available miniature, orcould be sculpting a whole new g-ure. Either way dont be disheartenedif your rst attempt isnt as good asyoud hoped for. My rst attemptwas rather poor, largely because Ihadnt taken into account all Ivesubsequently leaned about relative

proportion and pose. I did, however,help myself by starting with a gure

wearing bulky clothes standing in afairly inanimate pose, both of whichhelp hide much of the natural bodyshape. Dont worry about detailingyour gures at this stage; the mostimportant part to concentrate upon is

basic proportions and pose. Besides many ne details are betterpainted on than sculpted where they end up over sized. Concen-trate on getting the relative proportions correct by continuallylooking back to your reference material, be that photos, drawings,other miniature gures or just looking in the mirror. The kind oferrors in proportion seen in some model gures are the equivalentof accidentally ending up with heads the size of a beach ball and

legs like beer barrels.

The approach I use for sculpting depends to some extent on theuse of the nal gure; Much of my work is by necessity some-what cheap and cheerful produced quickly for pocket money

prices, in order to satisfy the need for large numbers of incidentalbackground accessories for use in larger dioramas. Whilst oth-er pieces are produced as detailed miniatures which have to bemuch more rened and stand alone as models in their own right.At the end of the day the quality of any goods or services willalways be dictated by the budget a customer is willing to spendupon them, but if making for your own personal use there need

be no such nancial restraints. The major difference in approachbetween the two extremes is largely down to the amount of sepa-


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Regardless of the above, sculpting a simple face doesnt have tobe difcult or time consuming. If you get the head the correctshape, the face can be kept as simple as you like. Add two rounddepressions for the eye sockets, pinch out a little protrusion forthe nose and score a little depression to suggest where the mouthis. If youre not condent about sculpting a face, then dont. Hon-estly, if the head is the right shape and size it will be believable.When you look at a gure from a distance all you really see of theface is the shadows of the eye sockets and the faintest suggestionof a mouth, both of which can be painted on. With practice andexperience youll start to rene the way you work on faces and

break them down into more and more complex stages.

The next job is to cut the surplus armature from the bottom of thegure and add shoes or feet. Measure the height of your gureand think about where you point the feet, something as seem-ingly trivial as this can make a huge difference to the characterand stance of the whole gure. Next use more putty to add the

gures collar, jackets and hats or any other costume details youwant. I generally leave the arms till last as these often cross overor in front of other detail. Think carefully about how you posethe arms. Naturally they hang from the shoulders, which shouldlook an integral part of the torso not stuck on separately to theside. If a person is in a relaxed pose then rarely is daylight visible

between the arms and the torso. Dont make the arms too fat andkeep the hands tiny. Trying to sculpt in the separate ngers will

just produce fat hands unless you really have got the patience towork with some tiny bits of putty. Most of all look at your ownhands for guidance and keep comparing the relative proportionsto other parts of the gure you have sculpted.

So there you have it, your rst gure. It might not be great, I stillproduce a few that get put straight into the rubbish bin. Frustrat-ingly other people are always best at spotting your errors, so its

often worth asking for another opinion of your work once youhave a basic shape. This not only avoids wasting time detailing

poor gures but speeds up the learning process. In fact, I wouldrecommend starting by just sculpting a few basic body shapesin different poses. Keep asking friends who will offer honestcriticism how you can improve the proportions or stance. Thetime and money spent in sculpting these is trivial, so dont worryabout starting again if you dont like what youve done, after allexperience is the best teacher and in this case is easily gained.Once youve tried a few basics of sculpting youll soon be pro-ducing all manner of original little gures, animals and other ac-cessories and cursing yourself for not having had the courage to

try sculpting earlier. Just remember though it takes practice tobecome good at anything, and study of the human form is some-thing few people ever completely master, even given a lifetimeof practice. So be patient and dont expect too much of yourself.

So if theres one bit of advice Id offer? Well I hope its alreadyapparent but I cant stress it enough. Dont worry about ne de-tail, concentrate on the relative proportions of your gure. Youhave a large margin of error with overall dimensions because hu-man beings are all different sizes, but they are all built to roughlysimilar proportions. If you can get the basic proportions correctthen most ne details can be simulated just with paint. However,no amount of skilful painting can disguise a badly proportionedgure. The picture above shows a group of 40mm tall Trompeloeil gures. All of these are identical and are totally feature -

less, sculpted without detail to show just what can be achievedwith paint applied over a basic blank body shape.

Irrespective of the scale you workin, relative proportions and posturedont change, all that varies is theamount of detail needed. In somerespects you can help yourself bystarting with smaller gures wherethe lack of ne detail is less of

problem. However, much as I en-joy the masochistic challenges ofmicro-modelling on a pin head Idrecommend starting at a comfort-able size at which the manipulationof materials is not going to presentyou with additional problems.

1/800th scale

guide to figure sculpting

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